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The Swing Of Things

The suitcase officially went back into the basement today, so I guess the vacation excuse is officially over. We got back home late Tuesday night (memo to self: Miami remains the worst reentry point into the US of anywhere), and Wednesday was mostly about resting up and feeling settled back home. Yesterday was my first morning back at work, which was fine, but as usual, the early rising and energy reqired at work makes the afternoon and evening after a bit of a wash.

That, and I'm finding it hard to get back into the swing of things, especially writing. Blogging lately, for me, has been an off and on enterprise at best, and, admittedly, more off than on. Writing about politics isn't simply frustrating at this point; mostly it feels simply pointless. Watching TV news and discussion programs - which I do a whole lot less lately - is frustrating and, I hate to admit, depressing. The waste of time and energy spent on useless topics ("our first story tonight: something not very controversial that happened on the Republican primary trail, amongst candidates you don't care about, pretty much all of whom will never be President.") really just floors me.

I'm left trying to fashion a blog out of movie reviews, the occasional pithy observation, and some witty asides about television programs I've seen, and no, I don't think that's much of a life, either. At the same time, I have no interest in simply stopping. As much as I like the idea that someone reads what I write, enojys it, gets something out of it... I write mostly because it fulfills something for me. And still, as I do it, literally as I type this, I feel more purposeful than I have... well, since I scribbled a few words about my vacation from a hotel room in St. Kitts.

There are two other obvious complications: I just got an iPhone for my birthday - mostly because my iPod died and I've come to the conclusion that the BlackBerry Curve, while nice, is technically flawed - and I have to admit, the remarkable number of things it can do (listening to online radio of disco remixes whilst reading the AP newswire, for example) means not even having to use my laptop for most anything. Second, on the job front, I am up for a fairly significant promotion and, when I am realistic, getting that promotion changes my priorities. I'm actually ambivalent, on a quiet personal level, about moving up, because I don't really know if I can sustain writing, even at this reduced level, over the long term while in management. On the better days, I resolve to try. On the worse dys, I just curl into a ball and avoid everyone and most everything.

(None of the last few sentences belong in a blog post that could potentially be read by your boss... but oh well.)

I suppose my point is that "real life" - off of the interwebs - has become the life I'm actually spending more time leading. Interesting things are happening; interacting with real people in real time is emotionally fulfilling; pounding the keys about personal and political frustrations isn't much fun (and frankly, has never entirely been my style). There's no real conclusion here, no absolute "that's it, I'm done", no resolution that I'll try harder to blog more. It might happen... and probably, however well intentioned, it won't anytime soon. Life goes on, I'm back in the swing of things, the journey continues... and that, really, is what matters, isn't it?

Island Time

Long ago - before I started working for Starbucks and my income dropped to 25% of what it had been - I liked to take my Spring vacations in the Caribbean. Back then I had a plan (a life's goal, if you will) of seeing every Caribbean island at least once. And I was doing pretty well with it, too. In the months before I quit my old job, I had even made plans to make my next vacation a trip to Nevis, which seemed somewhat remote and less accessible.

But then I quit my job (and just to be fair, I'm not trying to blame Starbucks for my financial predicament; I made the leap out of corporate life knowing that it would be less money and challenging. Not quite that challenging, but still), and vacation plans became, literally, a luxury I couldn't aford. For several years I took almost no vaccations involving considerable travel (Maine, Canada, that sort of thing), and indeed, almost no vacations at all. 

Then I moved back home, and between her financial support (I can't pretend it's not there) and my own mildly improved fortunes, vacations to further off places resumed. There was our lovely trip to Tucson and Sedona in Arizona. We took several cruises (qhich is a quick way to up one's island total, I found).

And this year, I managed to convince her to join my island hopping quest directly.

And oddly enough, here we are, on St. Kitts.

St. Kitts and Nevis are one nation, St. Kitts lying slightly north and east of Nevis, the islands separated by a two mile strait (a moment where the Atalntic meets the Caribbean). Yesterday, spur of the moment, we took a ferry from Bassaterre, the capital, over to Charlestown, the capital of Nevis. Two islands, one vacation.

We have shopped and explored and eaten wonderful food and laid in the sun. Well, technically I have laid in the sun while mom sits in the shade or under an umbrella, rrading a book (the latest Sara Paretsky, on her way to capturing my newest Elizabeth George). My face is red and a little sore, but otherwise, it is a typical tanning adventure. Already in just a few hours over a couple of days, I am several shades darker.

St. Kitts is marvelous, less developed than some of the islands (Nassau, Aruba), not too expensive, with some nice opportunities to eat well, pick up a few duty free items (a watch, some perfume, and my boss's cigarettes), and generally relax. Nevis, as I suspected, is somewhat less developed, but even more pleasantly low key and easy going. And we even managed to shoehorn in some history, seeing the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton (which, for this graduate of Hamilton College, was a treat).

It's the change of pace that I notice the most, not surprising for your average impatient New Yorker... but somehow the cheerfulness and friendliness of most Kittians makes the slow pace tolerable. Our dinner the first night (at a local legendary beachside "shack") took 45 minutes to arrive, what with the crowds on hand for the bonfire and the fire eater (he was quite remarkable). Somehow the wait was just fine. And the food was worth the wait.

Being here, on island time, made getting to writing this post an effort; I have had it in my head for tow days, but life, and wandering, intervened. We only have a couple more days to enjoy, but this trip is already one of the standout vacation choices I've ever had.  Now it's off to my morning run and another great cup of coffee at the local coffee place, a cup every bit as satisfying as the ones I get at work.

I promise to poat pictures too.

Oh, and, Happy Easter. :)

Articles We Never Finished Reading: Not That Different From Each Other

Let me tell you about the very rich,” F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote, buttonholing the reader in his short story “The Rich Boy” (1926). “They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.” Today’s rich are not only different from you and me but different from yesterday’s.

No one who has followed the heedless speculation that led to the 2008 financial meltdown and the subsequent bailouts would think of millennial-era greedheads as being anything other than steel-toed in advancing and achieving their interests; it is the rest of us who appear soft, our trust playing us for suckers. The distance between Fitzgerald’s very rich—now the extremely rich, the 1 percent—and the remaining 99 percent has never been steeper. The 1 percent occupy a higher altitude than the rest of us: their clouds look fluffier; their sunlight gleams with Hollywood gold. In Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis novels and in film classics from the previous century, the rich are portrayed as builders and expansionists, their pharaoh fortunes amassed from steel, brick, minerals, timber, railroads, shipbuilding, newspaper publishing; even those who won their money on Wall Street seem propped on industrial girders. Round-bellied, a watch fob looped from a vest pocket, these bankers and tycoons command offices as grand as railway stations, eat in dining rooms fit for Versailles. What they do and how they live have weight, imprint. The vast wealth depicted in movie/TV drama today is divorced from manufacturing and an invisible army of laborers doing their part; it’s divorced from anything resembling work. It’s floating and caressing, immortalizing.

- the generally perceptive James Wolcott, blathering about images of wealth on TV in the latest issue of Vanity Fair.

Now I generally like Wolcott, and I especially like him when it comes to culture watching - he takes it seriously, and he watches a lot - but this one is weak. Never mind the kind of lazy premise, a chance to quickly rope in a wide swath of series television in a highly generalized observation; the problem actually lies in the premise itself - his notion that somehow wealth today is vastly different from wealth in the past. This is just absurd - the first decade of the Twentieth Century was called The Gilded Age for a reason, and it wasn't because the men who made fortunes were "builders and expansionists"; it's because they made enormous profits in their businesses, and even more money in stocks and financial dealings. The Rockefellers and Vanderbilts, Morgans and Whitneys and Astors were not especially different from the wealthy bankers and hedge fund types of today: flush with absurd amounts of cash, spending it on pointless displays of generally poor taste. Wolcott generalizes off of Theordore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis... as if he's never heard of Edith Wharton or Henry James, the real chroniclers of this life of ease and indolence. Indeed, he goes so far as to dress up this middling case with a familiar line from the greatest of these observers of wealth, Fitzgerald himself, as if to miss entirely the point of The Great Gatsby.

I'm not trying to suggest that film and television are doing some great job dramatizing the realities of life as most of us face them; but what's deeply problematic in Wolcott's narrow view is some sense that This Just Happened and It's Not Like How They Used To Do It. The reality is... this is exactly how they used to do it, and it works. And perhaps the most telling failure to see this lies in Wolcott completely overlooking the largest and most tasteless display of excessive wealth: Downton Abbey. Or doesn't that count?

Are You Ready, Tell Me Are You Ready...

I've been sick for the past three days, hence no posting.

The Whitney thing keeps washing in and out of my head... one of my regulars at the coffee shop was at the funeral and called it devastating (he also went to see Aretha Franklin that night, where she paid tribute to Whitney. Also devastating).

In any case, while I gather some strength, here's one more, one I'd almost forgotten, probably her most flat-out jazz number, a big album cut on "Quiet Storm" and "Smooth Jazz" stations after Whitney came out. I loved this one.

 

 

Friday Field Trip: Bittersweet, Hot Chocolate, And The Home Fires

My Friday Field Trip Report is about coming home last night after a short (4 day) jaunt to Maine, a new family tradition you might recall us starting last year. Like last year, everything kind of fell into place at the last minute, reuniting the same group for a second go round of food, festivities, and family time. And again, a good, warm time was had by all.

I said last year... families are weird. This year wasn't so much about how different we were, but, for me anyway, how similar. This year we found more time to spend together as cousins - me, my cousin Christine, and cousin (if not exectly blood related) Jamila. It's complicated... but only on paper.

In person, we make quite a team - we managed a half day road trip to Brunswick to help Christine renew her international Driver's License (she's off again to Mozambique next Monday), shop for shoes, and do a quick tour of Old Navy. Christine and I played hosts of What Not To Wear with Jamila, suggesting new outfits - which was fun, but also depressed me, because I can't stand the show's hosts and the way they try to make their makeover recipients feel bad about themselves.

LIke much of this past year, the trip to Maine was ultimately sort of bittersweet, more good than bad, but something of a mixed bag, at least for me. Which is not to say I didn't love the company of family; to a person, it was wonderful to see them and reconnect (and typical of our stays in Maine, Mom and I actually see less of each other there than at home, even staying in adjoining rooms).

The bittersweet was more about places and memories - thinking of my father's side of the family and how estranged we are, for instance. And the increasing sense that so many bad memories I have lately are associated with Boston - from leaving my old jobs, to having to move, to the collapse of one of my close friendships. Driving home, we listened to a local NPR discussion program about problems with the "T" subway system in Boston, which reminded me how frustrating the commute was, for no comprehensible reason. And it's winter. And it's dark. And it's cold. My family isn't weird. But I am.

(There's also the part about the dreadful decision - which was entirely me - to stop and spend a night at a Motel 6 on the way up. Inexpensive to the point of being depressing.)

But in the end, the pluses outweighed the minuses. Mom and I stopped at a little German market that her sister recommended, stocking up on yet more German and Swedish specialty foods, always enjoyable, and we even tried their little cafe, which had delicious foods and an especially magnificent hot chocolate. We also stopped, as always, in Freeport, where we both found some bargains at the outlet stores. And we made it home in plenty of time for me to restart my viewing of The Vampire Diaries, cause I'm a teenage girl - with TV plans - at heart.

The best, and brightest moments, in Maine, were those quiet ones spent close to the fire, talking with family about times past and present, our hopes for the future, our views of the world at hand. My Uncle makes a mean fire, with all the seriousness and dedication required, as he does most things (and, my Aunt reports, he now approaches vacuuming and ironing with this same precision and seriousness, leaving her free to go out and about). That, plus his encyclopedic knowledge and love of jazz makes for some pretty comforting evenings of warm conversation to a relaxed beat. Keep the home fires burning... and maybe some of that bittersweet will get smoked out. Or something. Now it's back home, and soon it's back to work. And, right now... that's okay.

Friday Field Trip: Stalking The Queen of Louisiana

Famous people go to restaurants and eat.

I know this may surprise you, but live long enough in New York City, and you will discover that this truth makes for occasionally great people watching and also events that, in the long run, are pretty mundane. When I saw Molly Ringwald at a birthday dinner for one of her friends, I was struck by how ordinary, how simply New York she seemed. It's who we are. It's what we do.

Similarly, when my friend Jennifer and I ate a late lunch one day at Fred's, the restaurant atop Barneys on madison Avenue, we were both surprised and yet unfazed to discover we were sharing the otherwise largely empty restaurant with Chris Rock, his wife and kids. Nice, fun to share... but mostly we were there for the food (although, while the food is good - and pricey - in the end, I keep going back to Fred's because you never know who you might see).

So Friday night I got to spend a little leisure time in Manhattan, with Michael, my other red headed pal. Michael have been friends for several years, and he remains my truest connection to gay life in Chelsea and Manhattan generally. Edward, his especially stylish, and youthful, boyfriend is also a big part of my keeping up with the absolute latest.

Anyway, the three of us share generally fancy food tastes, though Michael and I also share a common love of cheap Chinese (indeed, it's kind of a litmus test for friends that we share an appropriately cheap Chinese meal), Edward will have none of it. So instead of finding a fairly fancy Asian, we decided to go with Le Grainne, a charming French bistro at 21st and 9th, where we've dined before - mainly crepes and sandwiches along with some pasta, this is one of those "little places" that's more about being known to the locals than being one of the top spots. From 23rd down, you can really find tons of these (something similar up the East side, but I find the Upper West more about trendy and less about quality).

Anyway, it was a night of lovely food and our usual outrageous and funny conversation - we share similar dark and witty senses of humor - and wonderful all on its own... but then Edward looked over and spotted Evan Rachel Wood. Now, I know enough about movie stars to be able to identify Evan Rachel Wood by name, but not really by face. But Edward pulled up her pics on his iPhone and confirmed.

Apparently, Ms. Wood is best known these days for playing the Vampire Queen of Louisiana on True Blood. 

But really, it wan't like we were stalking her, and I made Edward come away from staring at her through the side window (but really, he was just checking out her date). But it was a genuine sighting.

And she's lovely. But mostly, I think we just appreciated her good taste, as well as our own. And anyway, Ethan Hawke lives just across the street, so that really doesn't count.

And So This Is Christmas... And What Have You Done?

Christmas has been, like much this year, a little weird, but also somehow just right. I've felt quite "spirited", full of Chistmas cheer and joy, pretty much since Thanksgiving (and even a little before that, once we decorated the store). And yet, here we are, two days out... and we don't have a tree, and a lot of other work has yet to be done.

I'm pretty sure, without looking, that I mention my love of Christmas each year; it's a family tradition, it's my Swedish heritage, and it's the optimistic kid inside of me, all rolled up. Working in retail - which has been a pretty consistent thread of my adult working life - can really grind the Christmas spirit right out of you. Us salesgirls are a hardened lot. Yet somehow, as if on cue, I hear carols and see decorations, a little switch inside me gets switched on.

And it helps to remember what's really important about Christmas and the season. In our way, the people I know who are serious about a life in retail, kind of share this notion: Christmas is so not about the things and the shopping and the decorations in October. If you can't get beyond that, if Christmas doesn't live somewhere besides the mall... I think one is bound to be disappointed, at some point in life.

One of my customers has been on pins and needles, waiting to see if her County government job would be saved from massive budget cuts, and that her county subsidized living arrangement wouldn't also go away. Yesterday, we got the final good news: her job is secure, at least for now, and she took the big step of finding a new home and is now just settling in. It is, as they say, a Christmas miracle.

I'm afraid I'm something of a traditionalist when it comes to the calendar year; I see the year ending and the new year coming and somehow, this time of year is all endings and beginnings, sum-ups and fresh starts. It's kind of obvious, kind of cliche... yet that's the pattern I see, over and over. I get to December, and my mind just starts to take stock. And plan for the next start.

As I've said, in some ways this has been a very weird, very hard year - emotionally and economically tough, full of strange endings and fresh uncertainties. This year has also been a real test of just how thoroughly I can keep up with my self-assigned task of writing continually and consistently. But here I am, at the end of the year, and I find myself focused on what remains: the good that exists, the joys that highlght my daily routines, the love I have and can freely share. As much as I don't love Lennon's Christmas carol (and this year, I realized, for the first time... it's not Yoko's fault), I find myself, for once, appreciating his song and it's simple opening. So this is Christmas... I hope you had fun.

I did, and I will.

The Payroll Tax Break Is Kind Of Dumb. And So Is Not Extending It.

So a while back, the Democrats wanted to pass a tax break for "working families" (I'm sorry, I am a lifelong Democrat and I will stand up and cheer when someone, someday, kills off the phrase "working families". It just makes my teeth grate), and they came up with this kind of silly idea: they would lower the payroll tax.

It's a dumb idea because, first, the payroll tax is the funding mechanism for Social Security. This is the same Social Security that politicians like to claim is in "danger" when it isn't- though funding Social Security payouts long term has some fiscal problems... in any case, the way to keep Social Security solvent does not involve underfunding it.

That's okay, one can reply, because the Payroll Tax Cut had a funding mechanism in which the lost revenues are replaced by "general funds". This is usually called Robbing Peter To Pay Paul, or in this case, using tax receipts collected for one purpose to pay for other tax receipts that should have been collected but weren't, while borrowing money to make up for the shortfall.

This is really dumb. This is why department stores won't let you buy gift certificates, and then use the gift certificates to pay off your department store credit card bill.

Anyway, it's also a dumb idea to cut the payroll tax by a small amount because the small windfall most taxpayers receive is a) largely unnoticed, and b) probably not used to do things like pay down debt or improve savings. Because our economy is consumer driven, what they want people to do is shop. Which means buying things you don't need and probably can't afford. As opposed to taking some of your paycheck, and paying it into a savings plan that will pay out when you retire.

Oh, never mind.

The problem is that the payroll tax rteduction was put in place for a year, and it's now set to expire, and when it does, everyone will notice that their taxes went up. And Democrats - or more specifically, the President's reelection team - is worried that less money in people's paychecks will make them grumpy and grumpy people vote for Newt Gingrich. Or Rick Santorum. Or something.

Naturally, Republicans are in no mood to extend a tax break that makes the President look good (cue the natural segue into how Republicans Hate Working Families), and also are kind of mad about several other things, notably this plan to build a pipeline across the country north to south so that Canadian oil shale can be efficiently delivered to refineries in Texas. Oil shale is also a pretty dumb idea (slightly less dumb than fracking, but still), and the pipeline could probably be rerouted, but mostly, this "debate" is a lot of the smae thing we get these days of terrible, useless Washington politics. One dumb idea in exchange for another. None of which really addresses the problems we actually face.

I don't really care about any of this - which is why I don't write daily about the dramatic brinksmanship going on in DC - and frankly, I'd be fine if the payroll tax went back to normal and someone actually took brinksmanship over, and past, the brink. Perhaps then, something might change, a bit. I know, it's a foool's notion. But I remain optimistically foolish. Just for spite.

In any case, the payroll tax break is a dumb idea, but extending it is probably better than not extending it... but frankly, it's the fact that we're all standing around talking about this stupidity that just floors me. And also why I'd probably rather eat Christmas cookies, watch reruns of SVU, and hope the whole thing just goes away. Who's with me?

Here In The Real World

So... the last few days were spent mostly offline, out in the "real world." I'm more conscious, these days, of making the choice to step away from the onine sorld in favor of life lived in real time in real space. Working, doing things with friends and family, sleeping (a lot of sleeping)... these are my days.

It's not that I want to write less - I'm behind on movie reviews, for one thing - but the challenge of finding a balance doesn't get easier, and the sense that writing, at times, makes me put the rest of life, the real life, on hold hasn't had its usual appeal. Add to that the dismal state of blogs, especially politically motivated blogs, and the even more depressing state of politics in general... and the appeal of spending time with two very nice nephews just grows and grows.

The thing about life lived in real time, I find, is the way things are more immediate, more practical, more... well, real. Raking leaves, doing laundry, making a pie, serving coffee and cleaning my store... these things keep me grounded, my head focused on things that, in the end, probably matter most. The things we can actually do, the ways our lives can actual touch others, the problems that seem most immediate, most manageable, most solvable. 

So, here I sit while the plumbers install a new faucet in our kitchen - life is full of practical problems, these days - trying to get a little caught up. It's too cold, winter is upon us, I hate the early dying of the light, day after day. This has been, in so many ways, a strange year, full of unexpected twists and turns... only to wind up, here, with more of a sense that I am, in fact, doing okay, right where I need to be, focused (at least some of the time) on things that matter. If things keep eing this interesting, I could even learn to like this real world. At least some of the time.

Even The Trees Want Some Of That Action

Something like four days before the Big Storm That Changed Everything, I had this whole post planned about the natural beauty of Westchester County and the attendant problem of nearly running into deer on a regular basis.

Which is to say, even on the good days... life in the country means living on the edge of natural disaster.

But the storm came, and apparently I decided to take a week off to recover. Actually, as one might guess, work simply took over my life - my store was 150% of the past week's sales this week, no joke. The combination of power failure, which affected our two nearest sister stores as well as every surrounding town and village, along with our ability to actually keep pace (somewhat) with increased demand, made for a crazy week.

And we also lost Halloween somewhere along the way.

A week later, things are getting back to normal, sort of. Unlike Connecticut, our power problems seem to be pretty well addressed, and while some went as long as 5 days without power, the sense that things were moving, sometimes slowly, was apparent. It was also clear, as people ventured out and traveled around, that the extent of the damage was almost like nothing we'd seen in a long, long time, if ever. And frankly, we thought the damage from Irene was pretty bad. This was, if anything, worse.

More than the hurricane, I think, this snowstorm in October will be hard to explain to people who didn't experience it - even the hardiest among us - me included - who like winter and live to overcome the occasional hardship, were caught way off guard on the severity and intensity of tis storm. As I was driving - before I fell into that ditch - I had a greater than usual sense of driving in a completely new landscape, like landing on the moon or something. The day before, it was sunny and the trees lined the road in brilliant fall colors. And suddenly we were in a white out, and the trees were falling on the road.

A week later, the trees, having made their point, returned to standing upright. It's nearly as jarring, now, to drive in the expected fall landscape of rolling hills in fall's riot of colors. Like nothing ever happened, except for those last few piles of unmelted snow by the road. And those last dangling tree branches. And those 100,000+ people in CT still in the dark. I don't know about everybody else, but after the last couple of years, I've stopped seeing the trees as benign, silent presences. More than the deer, I think the trees want to remind us to tone down our hubris, remember that nature can go against us, that even the safest looking objects can hold untold dangers. 

Or something. I'm telling ya... we've been having a rough week out here.

Last night, I dreamt I was in an office building, on a fairly high floor, when out a window, I saw two tornadoes touch down. Just your average post storm apocalyptic nightmare. But after I woke up with a start, I drank a little water... and went back to it, to try and plan a better escape route. Hey... you never know.